Cassettes for processing biological specimens are well known. For example, they may be found described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,220,252 issued Sep. 2, 1990 to Beall et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,421,246 issued Dec. 20, 1983 to Schultz et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 4,997,100 issued Mar. 5, 1991 to Dudek.
These cassettes are formed of a body having a perforated bottom wall, opposite side walls, a front wall and a rear wall. Once a specimen is placed in a cassette, a lid is secured to the cassette to house the specimen.
Prior to being used for receiving a biological specimen, these cassettes are individually stacked in a vertical cassette loader with an open bottom from which they are collected individually. Data pertaining to the specimen contained in the lidded cassette is printed on the front wall of the cassette.
One problem associated with this method of stacking cassettes in the loader is that the cassettes must be individually placed in the loader by an operator, the operation being time consuming and, often, time is lost re-adjusting a cassette which may be improperly lodged in the loader (one reason being that the cassettes are in an oblique position in the loader).